» Convenience, not health, driving factor in bottled water consumption

Convenience, not health, driving factor in bottled water consumption

Health

Staff

Posted By: Staff

Published: Friday, June 19, 2009, 12:20 [IST]

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Washington, June 19 (ANI): Most people believe that bottled water is healthier than tap water, a new research has found.

However, such individuals are unaware of the exact benefits of consuming packed water but think they don't make much of a difference.

Lorna Ward led a team of researchers from the University of Birmingham who carried out interviews with users of the University's sports centre.

They found that convenience and taste-not health-were the main motivating factors for choosing bottled water.

"The majority of participants believed that bottled water has some health benefits, but that they were not necessarily significant or superior to the benefits provided by tap water. Convenience and taste were more influential factors for participants when deciding to buy a bottle of water".

Bottled water was described as being more 'pure' than tap water, and was also described as containing more 'minerals'.

However, most participants expressed doubts as to the extent of the health benefits of bottled water compared with tap water, believing that bottled water did have health benefits, but that these benefits were negligible.

The most commonly cited reason for purchasing bottled water was convenience.

"Our results suggest that the recent surge in bottled water consumption may not be motivated by beliefs about health benefits associated with bottled water," the research said.

The study has been published in the open access journal BMC Public Health. (ANI)